Once upon a time, Gus and his friends made Cinderella a ballgown, and Mickey made Walt a legend. 
The Mighty one was a superhero; the Mexican one was super Speedy. Spielberg brought a little Russian one to America, and E. B. White let his sail a boat in Central Park. There were, apparently, three blind ones, 
though Bart Simpson’s was just Itchy. Laura Numeroff gave hers a cookie, and you’ve probably let one named Chuck E. give you a pizza.
So why am I completely freaked out to have one in my house???
I was sitting in the den chair, one foot tucked under me, the other foot on the floor, and my laptop located where its name implies.
Suddenly I sensed it.
You know that feeling you get when there is SOMETHING else in the room with you? I peeked around the 17″ LED screen and THERE IT WAS, not 4 inches from my foot. I screamed silently (since there was no one else around to hear me, I obviously wouldn’t have made a sound anyway), quickly tucked BOTH feet under me, and watched it watch me.
Ewwww.
When it was a safe distance away (safe distance = 7 car lengths), I went to get a mousetrap. Not finding one, I came back with a broom. I dont know why. I guess I thought I could use it as a getaway vehicle if I saw her again.
I say “her” because she was small. And kinda cute. And completely offensive. And though I NEVER gave her a cookie, she still left little chocolate sprinkles in her wake. *Shudder.
I used to have gerbils as pets. Explain this to me.
Anyway, a couple of days and a mousetrap-shopping-spree later, the cowboy trapped one and notified me via text. I breathed a deep sigh of relief…until his second text arrived stating “what a big sucker he was”.
No, no she wasn’t.
She was a wee little thing. Dainty. Delicate. Disgusting. And apparently still vacationing in my house and inviting her friends.
Oh, where is a hungry snake when you need one???
“Mini Mouse” tormented me for days, zipping around corners, scurrying under sofas, bounding across bedroom floors, forcing me to leap into bed and pull the comforter up on all four sides to make CERTAIN she did not have an access ramp to my bed, and by extension, to me. Once she even stared me down from the back of what USED to be my favorite reading chair.
Finally, I broke down and bought glue traps. I know. They are inhumane. Or inrodentane. But this cohabitation arrangement had gone on entirely long enough; it was time for this unwelcome tenant to go! The cowboy lined up several traps in a row, baited them with cat food (which works great in the absence of an ACTUAL cat) and within the hour we heard her. And saw her. She raced under the couch, around the leather stool, across the brick hearth, landing on one of the glue traps with the finesse of an Olympic medalist, and went flying across the floor like a sticky Jamaican bobsledder.
I will not tell you what happened next, though a reference to Little Bunny Foo-Foo would be appropriate.
Go ahead, Good Fairy, goon me.
The End.
I hope.
I really, really hope.
game of phones
I am not a phone person.
This comes as no surprise to any of you who know me. When my cell rings, it is merely a request for my attention, not a requirement.
Maybe
… it’s learned behavior from my dad. Our adult conversations have mostly gone like this:
Dad: “Nnnnnyellow?” (His resounding bass voice rolls a series of “NNNN’s” to signify he is about to name the color yellow. It’s cute.)
Me: “Hey Dad!”
Dad: “Hey! Here’s your mom”
Now, Dad and I have a great relationship, it’s just that he already spends most of his days on the phone and I, well, I would rather stick those itchy, off-brand cotton swabs into my corneas than chit-chat on the phone and he knows this.
Maybe
… it’s because I once heard it said that after 5 minutes most phone conversations turn from “what” to “who”, and spiral downhill into gossip. I generally find this to be true, and am adamantly committed to never disparage others, even when the reverse courtesy is not extended.
Maybe
… it’s because I’m afraid of calling people at the wrong time. I’m a firm believer in etiquette when it comes to the right and wrong times to use the phone. I adhere to a strict “9 to 9” rule. Any earlier and you risk waking people, any later and you risk waking people. It’s rude, unless it’s an emergency. And by emergency, I mean death.
Then there are our “rural” friends and family who always seem shocked we are still sleeping after sunrise. They always say something politely passive-agressive like, “It must be so nice to sleep in” when what they’re really thinking is, “WHY ARE YOU STILL LAZING AROUND IN BED? WHAT WERE YOU DOING LAST NIGHT…WORSHIPING SATAN??”
Anyway, while we’re on the subject of poorly timed phone calls, my mom has been guilty of this on numerous occasions. When the cowboy & I were newlyweds, Mom ALWAYS called when uh, well, you know. Bad timing. Sometimes REALLY bad timing. We referred to it as her “sexth sense”.
Then when we lived in Alaska, she would forget which way the 3-hour time difference worked. She’d call at 8 a.m… thinking it was 11 in Anchorage. Unfortunately for us, it was 5. In the morning. FIVE. And we had a 3-story condo with only one phone (pre-Caller ID days). If we wanted to actually ANSWER the phone, we had 11.63 seconds from the first inkling of a ringtone to jerk awake, unswaddle from the blankets, bound down the hall and descend a flight of stairs
(necessarily taking 2 at a time) just to grab the phone off the wall before the mystery caller hung up. Many times I took a bronze medal in this event, but other times my qualifying time just wasn’t up to par.
Speaking of this 100-meter-phone-dash… one morning the phone rang me out of a dead sleep. Probably one of those “rural” friends. I stumbled down the hall with Frankenstein lead feet thinking, “Have to pick thing up and SAY words! What to say??? What WORD you say when you answer phone? What IS word?!?”
11.63 seconds later, I picked up the receiver and muttered loudly, “HUH?”
Eloquent, as always.
Maybe … THAT’S why I’m not a phone person.
the eyes have it
So…over the course of a single weekend I became legally blind in my right eye. The toddler and I were playing and being silly, and generally having fun jumping off tables and running with scissors when the fused fontanelle of Charlotte’s cute little cranium crashed into my delicate ocular socket. It was like the infamous iceberg against the hull of the TItanic (which shattered on impact, much like the lens in my eye). Tears of laughter and excruciating pain ensued. Mostly the pain thing, though.
After the collision, I excused myself for the evening with an “I just need to lie down” song and dance. Then I kept singing and dancing the same routine for several days. “I’ll be fine tomorrow. It will go away soon. It’s merely a flesh wound.” That’s just how I roll.
I always assume the _______________ (fill in the blank)
- chronic migraines
- dirty kitchen
- broken heart
- embarrassing gossip
- North Atlantic iceberg
will just magically go away if I ignore it.
It almost never does.
The Titanic took 2 hours and 40 minutes to go down. Took me several stubborn days. By the time I signaled SOS and had someone drive me to the optometrist’s office, I could no longer see the enormous E at the top of the eye chart.
Okay, so I could no longer even see the eye chart.
I was, in the words of Dr. M., “hours away from permanent blindness” in that eye. SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH. Apparently patience is not always a virtue. Sometimes it’s downright stupid. Next time I will signal for help before the situation becomes critical, as I have no desire to be scared half to death… twice.
Nine ophthalmology appointments, two surgeries, one pirate patch, seven prescriptions, three mascara-less weeks, and a few thousand dollars later and I’m incredibly grateful I don’t have to “see your face” with my hands. Especially those of you with oily T-zones.
So here’s what Aesop and I have learned from this adventure:
- Icebergs and toddlers are never as harmless as they appear.
- Going down with the ship is pointless when there are plenty of empty seats in the optometrist’s waiting room.
- Mom was right, if you have too much fun, somebody’s going to put an eye out.
she said 
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